Gift Exchange
by hobgoblin123
Summary: Roundabout five months after Tarrant crushed the crusade against his domain, a messenger from Jahanna arrives at the Patriarch's office, coming forward with a strange proposal. Will Damien Vryce agree on sacrificing himself for the greater good once again? And what's behind the Hunter's sudden turnaround? Slash eventually.
1. The Patriarch

**Gift exchange**

Disclaimer: I don't own the Coldfire Trilogy, and no profit whatsoever is intended.

A/N 1: Well, this is my X-mas contribution for 2015. In honour of the holiday spirit, I opted for posting a chapter on each Sunday in the Advent season and maybe another one on the 24th of December. Unlike in English speaking countries, it's the most important Christmas day here in Germany, usually celebrated in a rather solemn way (no funny hats and that kind of stuff, lol). But times have changed, and for most its just a 'present orgy', just as anywhere else, I suppose... Anyway, have a nice Advent, all ye Coldfire fans still somewhere out there!

A/N 2: Concidering that Gerald was revived by the Mother of the Iezu as the Hunter in this story, still undead and with his powers intact, it's basically an A/U, set about five months after the showdown on Mount Shaitan.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

His eyes narrowed into slits of suspicion, Damien Kilcannon Vryce glared at the gnomish man who had succeeded Jaxom IV as the head of the Church of Unification on the eastern continent and found the object of his scrutiny somewhat wanting. Alastair Temchevar's predecessor might have been a prejudiced, headstrong bastard who had resented him right from the beginning, had loathed sorcery so much that he had closed his eyes to being a natural, but in the end, he had been exactly what the Prophet of the Law must have envisioned as the perfect leader of his most treasured creation: steadfast in his beliefs, immune to the insinuations of evil and willing to pay the ultimate price for the common good.

The sad excuse for a Patriarch sitting across him at the heavy mahogova desk, fidgeting restlessly on his seat like a child awaiting being told off for his latest prank, couldn't hold a candle to him. However the man had gotten in this position, personal charisma certainly hadn't played a part in it.

"What is it?" the former priest asked curtly. "I've got business to attend to." It was a blatant lie. Since Tarrant had deemed it best to ditch him and set about crushing the crusade against his domain, sparing just a single soldier of the Church who had returned to civilization half out of his mind with terror, babbling about white wolves and disgusting worm creatures erupting from the ground and devouring his comrades, he had been doing nothing but idly twiddling his thumbs. But that was none of Temchevar's concern.

"A messenger has arrived this morning, Mer Vryce. From Jahanna."

Damien's heart skipped a beat, just one more thing his vis-à-vis didn't need to know. "And what the hell has that got to do with me, if I may ask?" he retorted with feigned indifference. "The Church surely can handle her own affairs."

The Patriarch harrumphed. "That goes without saying. But it turned out that the Hunter explicitly requests your involvement in the business."

"My _involvement_ , my ass. I hope you don't mind me saying, Holiness, but you're wasting our time. I've seen enough of him and his vulking Forest to last me a lifetime, thank you very much." His face a grim mask of determination, the warrior knight rose out of his chair. "If that's all, I'd rather return to my lodgings.

"But it's a matter of utmost importance! You can't just turn your back on the institution you once swore to serve!"

Vryce laughed, a harsh, bitter sound devoid of any genuine mirth whatsoever. "I can and I will. Where was your precious Church when I needed her most? Instead of backing me up when I damn well risked my hide in order to save the world from falling into the clutches of a power-crazed Iezu, she hindered me every step of the way, very nearly chucking me out for allying with a creature considered evil incarnate. And now her leader wants me to negotiate with the very same man? 'We use what tools we must', eh? Whatever can be said about you, you certainly follow the Prophet's teachings to the letter."

"You have no right to criticise the Church," Temchevar snapped in a huff. "The Hunter is a monster, an abomination in the eyes of God. But special circumstances require certain... adjustments. The messenger had a woman in tow, one of the five unfortunate souls abducted from the area over the last months. A _gesture of goodwill from his master_ he had the nerve to call her discharge. Of course the poor girl is stark mad, like all the others he allows to escape from his lair for whatever sinister purpose of his. But there were hints at more humans held captive at the Keep, survivors of the crusade and civilians alike, may God help them, and the possibility of them being handed over to us if we meet the conditions. We mustn't pass up the golden opportunity to save them from a terrible fate. As a former priest, you of all people should understand this."

Intrigued very much against his will, Damien sat down again. "And let's not forget the fact that their deliverance from evil would strengthen your position and get you a bunch of new followers, something coming in quite handy after the Lord of the Forest wiped the floor with your army and half of the believers converted to paganism consequently," he retorted drily. "But you've managed to pique my curiosity. What does the son of a bitch want for his show of leniency, and how do I come into the picture?"

"If I understand his accursed minion correctly, Gerald Tarrant, or whatever unholy spirit is inhabiting his body, doesn't ask for much. In a way. He suggests a kind of... gift exchange, something appropriate for this time of the year, or so I've been told. I don't have the faintest idea what this is supposed to mean."

The warrior knight could have enlightened him. It was the 4th of December, and if no unforeseen catastrophe had wiped out human life on their mother planet Earth or the religious beliefs had changed completely, a great part of its population slowly but surely would be preparing for celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, the festivities including a ritual gift-giving between relatives and friends. Here, on their new home at the outer fringes of the galaxy, the colonists had been forced to abandon the belief in a messiah along with saints and God's angels long ago, but a man as high up in the Church hierarchy as Alastair Temchevar should have heard about the ancient customs, anyway.

Damien bit back a curse. He was already by no means in a celebratory mood, and his gut feeling told him that he wouldn't like the answer to the question burning on the tip of his tongue, wouldn't like it one bit, but he simply had to know. "So let's stop beating around the bush, Holiness," he said with enforced calm. "You didn't summon me for nothing. What are the vulking conditions?"

"He promises to return all his prisoners, and we're speaking about roughly two dozen, in exchange for one single man. You."

Vryce felt as if he had been clubbed over the head. When the Neocount had been revived by the Mother of the Iezu on Mount Shaitan, if it could be called thus at all in his particular case, he had lost no time in transforming into something black, sleek and nasty. Curved talons the size of a small dagger digging into his clothes and huge, veined wings batting the air around him had been a dire omen of the things to come, and he had put his life into God's hands before losing consciousness. But Tarrant hadn't killed him. When he had finally come to again, he had found himself in a clean bed in Sheva, his accommodation paid for and a pouch full of gold coins in his pocket. He hadn't seen his ally against all odds ever since. The promise to rid Erna of the Hunter's taint forever was still standing between them, but so far, he hadn't been in the least inclined to make good on it.

"And what if I don't agree to this lunacy?" he choked out between gritted teeth when he could finally trust his voice again.

It seemed to him that the Patriarch turned a shade paler. "In this case, the prisoners are to be executed, one after the other. The messenger made himself perfectly clear that his debaucher is sick and tired of feeding more than twenty hungry mouths that serve no purpose, as he put it. He didn't sound as if he were kidding."

"I quite believe it. If the Hunter's minions come after him, and I'd bet my ass that they do, they aren't given to cracking jokes. But this doesn't automatically mean that we should cave in to his demands. It goes without saying that we can't take the keep by assault. It would be outright suicidal to try, as your failed crusade proved well enough. But if we could temporize with the bastard for a while, we might come up with a better strategy. Just let me talk to his servant and..."

"You don't understand, Mer Vryce. The messenger's already gone. Said his presence wasn't needed any longer because his master could read your thoughts from afar, and I've got no reason to doubt the man's words. There's a link between you and Gerald Tarrant, isn't it? A channel forged in blood. You not only fed him more than once, a most heinous deed in itself, if you ask me, but to make matters worse, you also imbibed a drop of his foul essence. It escapes me how you can live with such a thing, with the corruption of your soul it entails, but that's not the point now. If you haven't agreed on the bargain by twelve o'clock tonight, the Hunter will send us a treasure chest, filled with the deplorable prisoners' fingers. Twenty-four hours later, it will be their toes. Then their tongues and so on and so forth. As much as I wish otherwise, I don't think it's an empty threat."

Neither did Damien. He knew very well what the entity called the Darkest Prince of Hell with good reason was capable of if someone was foolish enough to cross him. Even if he hadn't had ample first-hand experience, what had happened to Andrys Tarrant would have been enough and to spare to make his toes curl with dread.

True to his demonic nature, the Prince of Jahanna had shown no mercy on the man daring to lead a crusade against his domain. Learning that a ne'er-do-well who had done nothing in his entire life but lamenting about his fate, whoring around and popping pills had brazenly worn a replica of the Prophet's circlet and famous armour, Damien had felt his hackles rising, but nothing could justify the atrocities Gerald had committed on his last living descendant after he had gotten his vengeful hands on him.

Considering the traces of torture on his body, or whatever had been left of it, Andrys hadn't died quickly. Not by a long shot. When the adept had been finished with him at long last, he had ferried his charred, mutilated corpse to Jaggonath, to be delivered straight to the Patriarch's office. At the time, the position had been vacant, but the message had been understood, nonetheless. What had become of the young pagan girl who had supposedly accompanied her unfortunate lover on the military expedition was still a mystery. Rumours had it that the Lord of the Forest had hunted her for his wicked pleasure, but very likely no one would ever know her fate.

The sound of fingers drumming impatiently on the desktop brought him back to the here and now. "With two dozen lives at stake, you're going to turn me in no matter what I decide, aren't you?" he challenged, his brows knitted into a tight frown.

Temchevar gulped down a mouthful of air. "Have you lost your wits?" he spluttered. "Of course I won't force you into anything. Who do you think I am? And besides, it would be a breach of the rules. You have to sacrifice yourself for the sake of the greater good out of your own free will, or the deal is null and void. In case we laid a finger on you, I was told that the Hunter would retaliate without mercy, annihilating the entire city. I don't want us to share Mordreth's fate."

Maybe the man wasn't as daft as he seemed to be. Anyway, the laws of the game Tarrant had set gave him a certain freedom of manoeuvre. Theoretically. On the practical side, he was in a goddamn tight spot. Turning his back on the captives and thus condemning them to a grisly death was anathema to everything he believed in, something the scheming bastard sitting in his black replica of Merentha Castle like a spider in her web was well aware of. Ultimately, he had no choice but to accept the inevitable and go to the Forbidden Forest like a lamb to the slaughter, a somewhat unsettling comparison, as far as he was concerned. But yet he couldn't bring himself to voice his consent.

His reluctance to play along wasn't so much caused by fear. Or, to be precise, by fear of Gerald killing him. If the man had wanted to do away with him, he could have easily accomplished the deed on Mount Shaitan instead of carrying him back to civilization like a vulking postal parcel. But when the Neocount had cast him a last farewell look up there on the volcano, preparing to sacrifice an existence spanning nigh to a thousand years, there had been something in those molten pools of silver he had never witnessed in them before, nor thought he ever would: pure, unbridled affection. It had struck a chord with him that hadn't fallen silent ever since.

Sometimes, when he was laying wide awake at night, incapable of finding sleep no matter how many stiff drinks he had knocked back in the course of the evening, strange chimeras rose from the abysses of his soul, mocking him with a hundred 'what-ifs' and 'might-have-beens', but it couldn't be. Mustn't be, whatever his fallible human heart might be wishing for. After Calesta's demise had rendered their temporary alliance unnecessary, the Hunter and he couldn't be anything than mortal enemies.

"Stop! You can't go in there, Mes! His Holiness is busy."

The agitated voice snapped Damien out of his reverie. At the very next moment, the door flew open and a young woman stumbled over the threshold, one of the Patriarch's acolytes hot on her heels. "Forgive me, Holy Father," the fellow puffed all in a flutter, his pudgy face flushed a bright red. "We tried to confine her to her bedroom, to avoid any... mishaps, but she refuses to stay there. Insists on speaking to a man called Damien Vryce, whoever that may be."

"I'm Damien Vryce. Leave her be."

The warrior knight got up and had a closer look at what had to be the Hunter's released victim. The woman, _no, the girl_ , he corrected himself, couldn't be older than eighteen. Whatever had been done to her in the weeks of her captivity hadn't fully managed to destroy her porcelain-doll beauty, but there was a glimmer of madness in her blue eyes that made his skin crawl.

Beholding him, those windows to a hell he didn't want to look into ever again widened in recognition, and her face split into a demented grin. "It's you," she exclaimed, her hands grabbing the lapels of his jacket like a vice. "The Master wants you. Needs you. Don't make Him wait too long.

"Calm down, Child. It's all right." His heart in his mouth, Damien wasn't even aware that he was falling back on the jargon of his former profession. "Can you tell me what this is all about?"

The woman cackled hysterically. "Oh yes, I can. Master trusts me, shares His thoughts with me. He isn't happy that you've ruined His taste for delicate pets. But you're different. Strong. You'll please Him for a long, long time."

Crap! This wasn't quite what he had wanted to hear. Gerald was already a handful on a relatively good day, and if he was pissed off at him for whatever reason, it didn't bode well for his personal well-being. There were things worse than death. A lot worse. The nightmares Tarrant had unleashed on him, drawing on his deepest fears, had taken him to the brink of insanity more than once. He didn't even want to imagine how it would be like to be hunted like a wild animal in the adept's ghoulish lair where all living things, be it man, beast or plant, were responding to his every whim.

For a few seconds, he seriously contemplated turning on his heels, leaving the office with the antique drapes, pierced-glass windows letting in the weak winter sun and patterned carpets he remembered so well from his first visit and to hell with the consequences. He had sacrificed three years of his life for the sake of mankind, had witnessed the deaths of cherished friends and unspeakable acts of cruelty which would make even a dauntless man regurgitate his dinner, let alone enduring things no one should ever be forced to go through himself. Enough was enough.

But he wasn't the only one who had suffered beyond human endurance. The madwoman grinning up to him must have been a light-hearted teenager not so long ago, doubtlessly taking delight in dolling herself up and being courted by her male peers. Now she was just a shadow of her former self, one more item on Tarrant's already long list of destroyed lives. Looking at her, he simply didn't have the heart to fail the remaining captives.

It was beyond all question that Gerald had anticipated his reaction and devised his strategy accordingly. Utterly unburdened by moral scruples, the cunning, manipulative son of a bitch had pulled exactly the right strings that would make his former brother-in-arms dance to his tune like a marionette. Dumping the part of his emotional life, however underdeveloped it might be, he had deemed suitable for achieving his purpose into his victim's defenceless brain couldn't have cost him more than a fleeting thought. And why not? It had already worked out fine in Cee's case, hadn't it? What his course of action might cost her was of no importance whatsoever to a man who had been torturing and butchering innocents without showing a shred of remorse for nigh to a millennium. Damn you, Merentha!

Sighing inwardly, Damien resigned himself to the inevitable. Every so gently, he pried the slender fingers off his lapels and made a sign of blessing over the hapless girl's head. He wasn't a priest any longer, but it certainly couldn't hurt.

Very much to his surprise, she let him do as he pleased, relented without a whiff of protest as the young acolyte wrapped his arm around her and pulled her towards the door. But at the very last moment, she turned her head and looked him square in the face, an eyebrow raised in sardonic amusement. "It was a wise decision," she whispered, her voice deeper than before and hauntingly familiar. "And a brave one. I've never doubted that you'd indulge your helper syndrome once again, though. Having said that, I'd very much appreciate if you were ready for your journey to the Forest in ten days from now on. At sunrise. Unlike me, my servants can travel by day. And Vryce..." The young woman chuckled darkly, a sound that made his hairs stand on end all over his body. "I'm looking forward to seeing you again. Don't disappoint me."

Before he could gather his wits for a reply, her delicate face went perfectly blank and she blinked, utterly confused. Then the door closed behind her with a snap which rang through the stunned silence like a gunshot.

"What... what on Earth and Erna are we to make of that?" the Patriarch gasped forth, his pale face beaded with sweat.

Damien shrugged. "Sorcery. Don't have a clue how Tarrant did it. It shouldn't be possible nowadays unless one is willing to die for a last Working, but it was to be expected somehow. How else could he have been able to defeat an entire army? The high and mighty Neocount of Merentha has never been one to bow down to the rules. Come to think of it, I still have to see the day he hasn't one last ace up his silk sleeve."

When Temchevar stared at him in baffled incomprehension, the warrior knight's lips curve into a crooked smile. "I've seen him manipulating the weather, shape-shifting as if it were child's play and killing with a mere thought, Holiness, so please don't take offence if I'm not wetting myself with excitement right now. In fact, I couldn't care less about his latest parlour trick. But consider me hired. I'm going to pay the vulking bastard a courtesy call he'll never forget."

"God will reward you for for it, Mer Vryce! You can't imagine what a weight you take off my shoulders. I'm deeply indebted to you. It goes without saying that you're reinstated in your office with immediate effect. After what has come to pass, we're in dire need of..."

"Kindly spare me your eulogies," Damien reigned in on his parade. "I don't do it for your sake. Or for the Church's, for that matter, and I definitely set no great store by being brought back into the fold. Frankly spoken, you can shove your reinstatement where the sun doesn't shine. If the girl's words are anything to go by, I don't think I'll ever be in a position to take you up on that, anyway. And now excuse me. I'm back in ten days, two hours before the break of dawn. Have a horse, a pack animal and some provisions ready for me. That's all I ask of you."


	2. Niles

**Niles**

Credits: 'The name of the One God is Mercy...' is from WTNF, p. 353.

A/N: Well, as it turns out, each of the chapters will be focussing on one particular character - canon and original - playing a prominent part in it. After meeting the new Patriarch in the last one, this one will deal with one of the Hunter's servants. I've always wondered which kind of men could willingly have a part in such evil, and for what reasons. Are they all psychopaths just burning to act out their sadistic inclinations? Do they lust for power or want to take revenge on mankind for a real or imagined wrong, or could it be that they aren't that much different from the man in the streets at the end of the day? In honour of the holiday spirit, I opted for a somewhat benevolent approach, giving them a human face, so to say. Gerald Tarrant won't make an appearance until the fourth chapter in person, but I hope that I can keep you sufficiently interested to read on, nonetheless...

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Ten days later, on a crisp late autumn morning with temperatures barely above freezing point, Damien was standing at the northern gate of Jaggonath, keeping an eye out for the legation from Jahanna. He had used the short reprieve for settling his affairs, making his last will as well as writing letters to Her Holiness and his older brother. Pretty close in their childhood, they had become estranged from each other in his mid teens when he had refused to worship the deity Yoshti like the rest of his family and entered the seminary in Ganji-on-the-Cliffs instead. Aaron didn't really need to know what exactly had come to pass in the last three years. He would only throw his hands up in horror and call him a complete and utter nutcase. But as it was very well possible that he would never see him again, he had thought it better to drop his sibling a few words concerning his latest suicidal mission. Just in case.

The former priest wasn't the only one on the lookout. If he had had his way, he would have drawn the veil of silence over the whole questionable affair until they had a bit more substantial to show than the vague hope that the men posing his escort would bring the prisoners along. But discretion didn't seem to be among Temchevar's virtues. Not quite twenty-four hours after he had left the Patriarch to his own devices, the whole metropolis had already been buzzing like a beehive with rumours about the impending exchange. As was to be expected with regard to the human nature, the tales grew ever wilder with each retelling. Word had it that the surviving crusaders had been tortured half to death in order to make them apostatize from their old faith and swear allegiance to the Unnamed instead. As for the womenfolk, well, it didn't take much imagination to picture their fate, being at the complete and utter mercy of fiendish creatures who had forsaken their human birthright and wholeheartedly embraced evil long ago.

Over the last days, the mood of the public had become more and more heated, and Damien didn't harbour a sliver of doubt that it would take only a small spark to make the metaphorical powder keg they were sitting on explode. There was no denying that most people were deadly afraid of the Hunter and would rather cut off their own hand than raising it against one of his servants, but there were always hotheads prone to using their brawns instead of their brains. He didn't even want to imagine Tarrant's retaliation campaign if the citizens of Jaggonath dared to displease him once again so shortly after the failed crusade against his domain. It certainly wouldn't be pleasant.

Somehow, the thoughts of the Lord Mayor on the matter must have lead in roughly the same direction. When Temchevar had done nothing to mitigate the situation, he had imposed a strict curfew, starting at ten o'clock last night. Those who weren't absolutely indispensable at work, mainly healers, nurses and police officers, had to stay at home, whether they liked it or not. But there was no chance in hell to enforce suchlike restrictions on the concerned relatives and friends hoping for the release of their loved ones. Apart from the fact that they least of all people would be foolish enough to attack the delegation from the Forbidden Forest, such a crime against humanity surely wouldn't make a good impression with regard to the next election campaign.

When the riders came into view at long last, the crowd fell so utterly silent that one could have heard a pin drop. An eyewitness of the adept's capacity for cruelty on more occasions than he actually cared to count, Vryce had braced himself for receiving a group of ragged, humiliated individuals half frozen to death, but nothing could have been further from the truth. Tarrant evidently had spared no expense kitting his involuntary guests out, nor had he let them starve in the long weeks of being under his thumb. Wrapped up in splendid white fur coats even royalty wouldn't have been ashamed to parade, each and everyone of them looked well-fed and in high spirits. But it was something else entirely that made him blink in astonishment.

From his one visit at the keep, he remembered the Hunter's servants as shadowy, human-shaped figures swathed in black which somehow seemed to elude any closer scrutiny. However much he had squinted his eyes and tried to recognize their features while handing his mount over to them, they had remained faceless, rather resembling insubstantial spectres than living, breathing humans.

Things evidently had changed profoundly in the meantime. The ten men accompanying the prisoners were garbed in the blue-and-silver livery of the Neocounty of Merentha, the early morning sun glittering on their tresses and richly adorned bridles of their mounts. The tallest of them, a dashing young fellow in his early twenties, even carried a silken banner many an exotic caterpillar must have given its life for, displaying the yellow Earth sun rising over a book whose cover was adorned with golden, interlinking circles, the symbol of their faith. It was a splendid sight.

Feeling as if he had been transferred into the Revival period all of a sudden, Vryce couldn't help but stare, his mouth slightly agape. He hadn't even halfway processed what he was seeing when an outcry cut through the cold winter air like a finely honed blade. "Alannah! Oh my God, is it really you?"

Her arms outstretched, a middle-aged woman broke free from the crowd and ran towards the arrivals, her long skirts trailing behind her. Her call didn't go unheard. One of the female captives, a young beauty with long, raven black braids woven through with silver threads, threw up her head. For a moment she hesitated, trading glances with the standard bearer. Something unspoken seemed to pass between them, but then she tore her gaze away and flung herself off her chestnut gelding, right into her mother's waiting arms. It had a signal effect. All at once, Damien was surrounded by people hugging each other breathless. Others, the less lucky ones realizing that they had been waiting for a miracle in vain, wailed in anguish or cried silently into their handkerchiefs.

His heart heavy with grief, Damien turned towards his mare, but was stopped by one of the Hunter's servants leading a spare horse. "There's no need for riding such an old nag, Mer Vryce," the man said with amazing kindness. "The mounts carrying our _guests_ are staying with them. As a compensation for their... troubles. Trust me that there's a fair amount of gold in each saddlebag. More will follow, for anyone who can validly prove that the Neocount of Merentha has done him wrong. Or her, for that matter. However, His Excellency sends this black stallion with his kindest regards. It's yours to keep wherever you go. A real beauty he is if you ask me, and I've seen a lot of damn gorgeous beasties over the last fifteen years."

Having a closer look at the animal in question, Vryce realized that the man wasn't exaggerating. The stallion was indeed one of a kind, his coat a glossy black that gleamed in the sunlight and his carriage proud and elegant. He was a horse lover's dream come true, but his mind reeling with the revelations just sprung upon him, Damien couldn't quite appreciate the generous gift.

Every now and then over the last four hundred years, a woman had returned from the Forest alive, if not unharmed by any stretch of the word. Aside from being in a bad physical condition, most of them had gone insane during the hunt, just like the poor thing who was locked up in a mental asylum by now. Remembering her flickering eyes and, worst of all, Tarrant's voice coming out of her mouth in an utter perversion of nature, the warrior knight couldn't help but shuddering. He prayed with all his heart that she would be alright again one fine day, but his hopes weren't high.

Anyway, those unfortunate women hadn't made it on their own but had been allowed to escape for the Hunter's sinister purposes. In one of the seemingly endless starry nights aboard the God's Mercy Gerald had told him that he could have taken each of them down easily if he had so chosen, but had refrained from killing them in order to keep their successors' hopes alive that they might be one of the few to see the sun rise again. And then, in those last desperate moments ere the break of dawn, he would pounce on his prey, tasting the death of her hope as it was drowning in a sea of terror.

It didn't sound any less unsavoury now than it had then, but he presently had more urgent matters at hand than Tarrant's lamentable eating habits, for example wondering why the hell the man hadn't killed his latest five victims in a row but had sent them home instead, four of them apparently none the worse for their ordeal. He had even lavished presents on them, including one of his priced true horses each, and offered wergeld for the lives taken in the past. It was an unheard-of sensation.

No less astounding was the survival of some of the crusaders. Three years ago, the adept would have slain them to a man without batting a golden brown eyelash, just to move against the initiators of the raid against his domain immediately afterwards, dealing a blow hard enough that no one would dare to oppose him ever again in decades to come. Letting a bunch of zealots who had been foolish enough to wage open war on him live, let alone reimbursing them for their captivity, simply wasn't his style, a fact settlements like Mordreth could testify to.

Not that Damien minded the sudden turnaround. It was an improvement, after all, but he couldn't quite fathom that a creature who had thought nothing of torturing and killing innocents for nigh to a millennium seemed to have changed into something of a pussycat overnight. Gerald's overt threat to execute the prisoners in case his conditions weren't met he could understand, if not approve of. He wouldn't have expected it otherwise. But this simply didn't make any sense.

"We'd better get going now, Mer Vryce, while everybody's attention is focussed elsewhere. His Excellency cautioned us against lingering. He thought that the mood might change, and I don't want to be here when it happens, especially because we're strictly forbidden to resort to violence."

One more item on his already long list of mysteries. By now, the warrior knight was quite sure that Tarrant's brilliant but twisted mind had hatched just another one of his notorious schemes. The bastard had never done something without a reason, and he certainly wouldn't stray from his chosen path in his advanced age. It just remained to be seen whether his sudden _reform_ would turn out for the better or the worse. So far, the Hunter behaving out of the ordinary had rarely boded well.

Stifling a sigh, Damien mounted his stallion and kneed him into motion. Under the given circumstances, it was utterly futile to agonize about things beyond his sphere of influence. In a little more than a week from now, he would meet Gerald again and see what the man was up to. Everything else was in the Lord's hands.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Nine days later he found himself at the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest. It was bitter cold, and he was glad that the leader of his escort had decided to camp instead of hurrying on through the icy darkness. The servants of the Hunter huddled around the blazing fire, whiling away the hours playing dice and nursing mugs of hot grog. It was an astoundingly peaceful scenario. In any case, the men weren't quite what he had expected them to be. With the exception of Niles, the young standard bearer, they kept mostly to themselves and only talked to him unless absolutely necessary, but all in all, they seemed no different from any ordinary fellow one could encounter in a tavern.

Serving evil incarnate for many years must surely have left its mark on them, but however corrupted to the core they might be, it didn't show in their demeanour at all. The tone between them was amazingly civil, utterly devoid of the profanities and lewd allusions so very common in groups consisting purely of males, and Damien hadn't failed to notice that more than one had given their youngest comrade who'd been pulling a wry face since their departure from Jaggonath a comforting pat on the shoulder in passing. They took care of each other, and that was more than could be said about many folks having a fitting pious saying on their lips at all hours of the day.

Strangely restless in spite of his aching bones, Vryce struggled to his feet and headed for the darkness under the trees. Nobody bothered to hold him up. And what for? He hadn't come within a leisurely day's ride to the keep just to make a bolt for it now, and even if he tried to sneak away under the cover of darkness, he very likely wouldn't get far. A great many things could be said about Gerald Tarrant and not all of them were pleasant, but the adept was no more inclined to leave something to chance than to greet the dawn. Without a doubt the vulking son of a bitch was monitoring his every movement, using their unique channel to his advantage. Running off in the Hunter's very own realm, the perfectly balanced ecosystem he had so painstakingly created and wherein he was unrivalled master of it all, would be tantamount to courting disaster.

Damien paused in a small clearing no more than roundabout eighty yards away from their camp. As he was gazing up at the multitude of stars glittering against the backdrop of the night skies like precious jewels, he thought of a pair of no less dazzling silver eyes, and a sigh escaped his throat. At the mere thought that he would face his former ally again in just a few hours, his insides twisted into a tight knot of apprehension, and a tangle of emotions bobbed up to the surface of his mind he'd rather not investigate too closely.

He still abhorred the demonic aspects of the Hunter persona, his unabashed cruelty, sadistic pleasure in the suffering of his victims and utter ruthlessness and nothing would ever change this, but what he had told Temchevar about being thoroughly fed up with Tarrant and everything connected to him was only half the truth. As a matter of fact, he felt pretty lonely without the bastard annoying the hell out of him at least once a day, missed even the man's damn arrogance and caustic wit, let alone his amusing vanity.

There was no denying that the Prince of Jahanna was an abomination no less fell than any starving demonling, a bloodthirsty monster lurking just beneath the aristocratic, cultivated veneer, but a tiny spark of humanity still smouldered in the ashes of his former identity as the Knight Premier of his Order and founder-father of their common faith. Whenever that spark flared up, allowing a glimpse of the man he had once been, Damien found that he was rather enthralled by the human soul locked up in a body which had been transformed into something far beyond the mortal plane.

As unlikely it might seem, Tarrant had grown on him until the enemy he had sworn to kill what felt like an eternity ago had become a brother-in-arms at first and then a fire-forged friend for whose redemption he would have given an arm and a leg at the end of their acquaintance, but it hadn't been meant to be. Freed from the yoke of the compact he had struck with the Unnamed nigh to a thousand years ago at long last, the adept was still undead, trapped in a vicious circle of hunger and feeding on the vital energy of man. In this regard, he had mucked things up on a grand scale, one more item on his ever lengthening list of regrets, but weighing more heavily on his soul was the sneaking suspicion that his feelings for Gerald were anything but merely brotherly.

"Do you have a minute to spare for me, Reverend Vryce?"

Damn! Having enough problems on his own, the warrior knight could have done with a bit of peace and quiet, But registering the miserable undertone in the voice of the lad he had quite come to like over the last few days, he didn't have the heart to say no. "Strictly speaking, I'm not a priest anymore," he said gently. "But of course we can talk. What's bothering you, Niles?"

"A lot of things. Don't really know where to start, actually." Tarrant's servant let out a low sigh. "You aren't... going to harm His Excellency, are you?"

"As matters stand, I'm much more concerned about it being the other way round."

When the young man's brow knitted into a confused frown, Damien forced a smile. "Don't you worry about your precious _Excellency's_ well-being. He can be quite a pain in the ass, but I bear him no ill will. Not after all the shit we've been through side by side. If he doesn't do anything stupid, I won't lay a finger on him. You have my word on it. Does that make you feel better?"

"A little bit. He's a good master, you know. Not of the kind and caring sort. That's simply not in His nature. But He's just, never punishes you for something you haven't done. And He doesn't require those... those things of me. Like the merchant who bought me from the orphanage."

"' _Things_ '? What the heck are you talking about?"

It was hard to know in the eerie twilight under the starry sky, but it seemed to him that Niles was blushing furiously. For a few seconds, the silence was near to absolute save for the hooting of a hunting nocturnal bird and the sound of a small mammal scuttling through the undergrowth, but then the lad squared his shoulders and looked him straight in the eye. "What no one should suffer against his will, least of all a child," he breathed. "You know what I mean, don't you?"

"The son of a bitch forced himself on you."

Niles nodded. "It started when I turned twelve. Old enough for the pleasures of the flesh, as he put it. I tried to fight him at first, Father, I really did, but it was no use. He flogged me for defying him and locked me up in the coal cellar for two days, naked and bloody. It was dark, and I had nothing to eat, no water. So I learned to hold still however much it hurt. And it did hurt, so badly that I couldn't help but screaming into the pillows. He just laughed and called me a sissy. And worse."

"And so you ran away from him," Damien forced out between gritted teeth.

"Not quite." The young man swallowed convulsively. "One night, Mer Rashin had been particularly rough and I was crying my eyes out on my straw pallet, His Excellency was there all of a sudden. Materialized right in the centre of the room as if He were a ghost. I was scared stiff at first, but He quickly reassured me. Said He weren't after my life and could offer me something better than this nightmare. As always, He was true to his word. I arrived at the Keep a complete illiterate. He taught me to read and write and allowed me to use His library. I owe Him. All of us do, in one way or the other. Just take Rob, the man who brought you your stallion. He tried to drink himself to death after his wife and children had succumbed to a plague ravaging the northern lands in twelve twenty nine, and now he's our stable master, found a new purpose in life."

"But you're aware of what Tarrant is, aren't you? What he does?"

"Of course I am. He isn't called the Hunter for nothing, I suppose. But you have to understand that whatever the gossip mongers say about us, we're just humble servants. Most of us, like myself, don't have a clue about sorcery. We mainly care for our master's horses, brew Jahanna's famed beer, keep the rooms nice and tidy and run errands. Until recently, the creep Amoril was responsible for the more... sinister tasks. I think I can speak for my companions when I tell you that his demise isn't mourned. Anyway, what I'm saying is that we hardly come in contact with His victims at all. The prisoners we brought to Jaggonath are an exception of the rule."

The warrior knight cocked an inquisitive eyebrow at him. "So your conscience is clean."

"No, it isn't. Far from it, in fact. All the rivers on Erna combined couldn't wash away my guilt. That special night, when His Excellency came into my chamber, He suggested that I should teach my owner a lesson, show him how much it hurts. His face was a mask of ice and His voice perfectly calm, but the hatred in his His eyes, the cold fury... I had never seen anything like it before, and I pray I never will again. It kindled something in me I hadn't even known existed. I got up as if in a trance and followed Him into Rashin's bedroom. May God help me, but the bastard's expression of utmost terror when he woke up and saw us looming over him was balm for my wounded soul. Try as he might, he could neither scream for help nor stir a limb, was as helpless as I had been so many times, and I seized a poker and..."

Overwhelmed with his memories, he buried his face in his hands and burst into tears. Vryce's heart clenched with pity. Not quite trusting his own voice, he placed his sword hand on a trembling shoulder and gave it a sympathetic squeeze. "Don't, Niles," he muttered at long last. "What you did was a terrible thing, but you were just a boy then. A miserable, traumatized boy vulnerable to the insinuations of evil. Who knows better than I how very convincing your master can be? If you truly repent your deed, the Lord in His wisdom won't hold it against you."

"But you don't understand, Father! Alannah promised to marry me, but what if she ever finds out what kind of man I am? And her parents... being stout believers in the One God, they'll never give us their blessing."

Damien blinked. Now this was an interesting development. Witnessing the non-verbal communication between those two young people, something had struck him as rather odd right away, but his mind on other things, he hadn't paid proper attention to it. No wonder that the lad had been out of sorts since he had been forced to leave his sweetheart behind, unsure if he would ever see her again.

At first, he felt slightly revolted at the idea of such an ill-fated union. However affable Niles might be, one couldn't rationalize away the fact that he had been serving the Lord of the Forest for many years now. Sanctioning his affair with one of Tarrant's innocent victims simply didn't feel right. But then he thought of his own emotional dilemma, and his ears reddened with embarrassment over his hypocrisy. Who the hell was he to judge, a former priest harbouring a formidable crush on the real mastermind behind all this evil, the very creature who'd hunted the girl for his wicked pleasure? It certainly couldn't get any worse than that.

"Listen, Niles," Vryce said much more calmly than he actually felt. "If you're absolutely sure about your marriage plans, I could talk to Alannah's parents. Subject to the condition that I will be alive at the end of this little adventure trip, that is," he added with a wry grin. "As I've already pointed out, I'm not a Reverend any longer, but I'm still a Knight of the Order of the Golden Flame. That might count for something on their tally. Should things go awry, I can always remind them that the nature of the One God is Mercy and His Word forgiveness. Thus the Prophet of the Law taught, and his words are no less valid among the faithful nowadays than they were in his lifetime. And now you'd better take a nap. It's already past midnight, and we're supposed to break camp at the crack of dawn. Sleep well!

It was a sound advice under the given circumstances, but musing about the redeeming power of love, the warrior knight found it pretty hard to act on it himself. He kept tossing and turning in his sleeping bag as if he were laying on an anthill until the first tentative chirps of the birds who hadn't fled to warmer climates were heralding the beginning of a new day. Only then he managed to fall into a fitful slumber at long last.


	3. The lady in the tower

**The lady in the tower**

A/N 1: Argh, I've racked by brain, but I couldn't find anything even remotely fitting as a substitute for the phrase 'utterly alien to the mortal plane'. So please forgive me for using it in two consecutive chapters...

A/N 2: A happy third Advent to all of you!

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

They arrived at the Hunter's keep the following afternoon. For the first time ever Damien saw what the place was like in broad daylight, and the sight surpassed even his wildest expectations by far. The rays of the setting sun reflected in the obsidian black volcanic glass of of the castle's façade so that the entire edifice seemed to be ablaze, transformed the soaring finials reaching up toward the sky into veritable pillars of fire and highlighted the delicate patterns of the tinted glass windows. Just like the landlord, it was stunning, heart-wrenchingly beautiful, but utterly alien to the mortal plane.

As if in a trance, the warrior knight dismounted, pressed the reigns of his stallion into a waiting hand without paying any attention whatsoever to what he was doing and followed Niles inside. Whatever changes might have been wrought in the Hunter, his taste in interior design hadn't kept up with them. Everything was just as he remembered it from his first visit, from the black numarble floor streaked with the occasional bit of crimson giving the eerie impression of wading through a shallow lake of half-dried blood to the novebony furniture and golden drawer handles and doorknobs which only served to intensify the overall impression of dramatic darkness.

On they went silently as two wraiths, passing the Revivalist chapel wherein he had finally found out to his horror what had become of the man who had written almost every single one of the holy scriptures of their faith after his abysmal fall from grace. It seemed to take a small eternity until they came to a pair of doors with heavily carved surfaces, the entrance to Tarrant's audience chamber. His breath coming in short, ragged gasps, Damien was just about pushing them open when a low voice stopped him dead in his tracks. "Mer Vryce! May I have a word with you first? In private?"

Whirling around, his gaze locked on a young woman he had never seen before. Even about six months pregnant, she was simply breathtaking in the flowing, richly embroidered emerald green robes of an age long gone by, her pale, finely-chiselled face a flawless oval and her thick black braids, interwoven with dozens of golden shimmering pearls that must have cost a fortune each, winding around her proud forehead like an intricately wrought circlet.

Apart from Gerald, she might have been the most beautiful human being he had ever set eyes upon, although the adept didn't quite qualify for the category any longer. But it weren't her striking looks which balled his hands into white-knuckled fists and caused his heart to pound like mad against his ribcage.

Merciful God in Heaven, here was the perfect embodiment of the adept's prey preference, simply born to be devoured by him, at least from Tarrant's twisted point of view. But she was with child, carried a new life. How could the cold-hearted son of a bitch dare to victimize her in her condition? God knew what kind of reward she had been offered for placing herself on the Hunter's menu if she had had a choice at all. The ghastly memories of poor Sisa who had thrown herself into the cold embrace of Novatlantis when she hadn't been able to bear the nightmares crafted for her benefit by an unrivalled master of fear anymore still haunted him in his dreams. Back then, he had felt obliged to tolerate her suffering for the sake of the greater good, albeit grudgingly. It was a sin of omission he didn't care to repeat.

 _Just over my dead body, you sick bastard_ , Damien thought grimly. Seething with rage, he came precariously close to giving in to the surge of black violence welling up inside him and to hell with the consequences, but managed to pull himself together in the end, if only just. Attacking the Lord of the Forest in the heart of his sinister realm would gain him nothing save a quick death. In the best case, as Andrys Tarrant's mutilated corpse had proved well enough. The fact that no one had even bothered to ask him to leave his weapons behind spoke volumes about the negligible threat he could pose against a being as powerful as the Prince of Jahanna. And about the man's utter disregard thereof.

With all his might and main Vryce pushed down his abhorrence, the soul-crushing disappointment that Gerald's supposed reform shaped up as just another castle in the air. The last word had not been spoken about this matter, but he would listen to what the woman had to say first.

Taking a deep breath, he released the hilt of his sword he had grasped without ever realizing and repeatedly clenched and unclenched his hands in order to bleed off some of the tension. "Is it permitted to talk to her?" he asked his escort.

Niles shrugged. "You're a guest here. An honoured guest, or so I've been told. Of course it is permitted, as long as you don't let His Excellency wait too long. He isn't a very patient man, as you presumably know all too well. I'll be right here waiting for you."

His mind reeling, the warrior knight followed his mysterious guide through an inconspicuous side door he hadn't noticed before and up a flight of winding stairs leading to one of the towers of the keep. About thirty yards above ground level, it opened up into a spacious oriel chamber that had evidently undergone some modifications for her convenience. The black-and-red interior turning the rest of the castle into a gloomy anteroom of hell was brightened by silk cushions in sunny colours and a gorgeous handwoven carpet in a delicate pattern of birds and vines. With the fire burning merrily in the fireplace, the chamber looked almost homey, something he certainly hadn't expected in this place.

But he didn't have much time for appreciating his surroundings. As soon as he had stepped over the threshold, the young woman offered him a slender hand. "Pleased to meet you, Mer Vryce. Or may I call you Damien? I'm Narilka Lessing."

Registering the look of baffled incomprehension on his face, her rosy lips curved into a smile. "Andrys Tarrant's lover. The mother of his child. I've been treated to so many stories about you and your adventures that I forgot you very likely have never heard my name."

"The pleasure is all mine," Damien returned automatically. "Of course you can call me by my given name if you want to, Mes Lessing. Narilka," he corrected himself. "But you have me at a slight disadvantage. I hope that you don't mind me asking who told you about me. And what the hell you're doing here. If the Hunter is holding you prisoner..."

"There's no need for bristling. I'm nothing of the sort. Tracking the crusaders who hadn't fallen prey to his creatures yet, Gerald found me in the Forest, cornered by a pack of white wolves. They would have devoured me had he not intervened just in time. Since then, I've been enjoying his hospitality. He's a wonderful host, as you'll doubtlessly soon find out yourself," she added with a twinkle of mischief in her sapphire eyes.

The former priest had many virtues, but diplomacy wasn't among them. "I'm glad to hear that the bastard possesses some redeeming traits," he blurted out, "but with regard to the fate of the last survivor of his bloodline, thanks to him, I might add, I'm somewhat amazed that you've nothing but praise for him. You know what happened to your lover, don't you?

Slender shoulders rose in a shrug. "I still grieve for Andri, but let's not forget that he led an army against his ancestor, intent on taking revenge for the slaughtering of his family. It's only natural that Gerald fought back, As a gold smith, the intricacies of jurisprudence are beyond me, but even I know that killing in self-defence isn't the same as murder."

"Granted. But it isn't self-defence we're talking about. With Calesta to back him up dead and gone, Andrys didn't stand a snowball's chance in hell against a creature no less ruthless and cruel than his demonic seducer. Vulking hell, Tarrant has got a thousand years of experience in sorcery under his belt. Even if he weren't undead, with the dark fae being at his beck and call, he could easily have disarmed the poor lad without an ounce of bloodshed. But instead of tempering justice with mercy, he... did what he did," Damien finished somewhat lamely, remembering just in time that it might not be altogether advisable to read a pregnant woman into the grisly details of the child's father's demise.

"Tortured him to death, you mean," Narilka Lessing said calmly. "That's what Gerald wanted everybody to believe. But trust me that Andri's wounds save the one which killed him were inflicted on him after he had drawn his last breath. As a... deterrent. And before you judge me too harshly, you should take into consideration that Gerald was by no means a stranger to me when he saved me from being torn to pieces by Amoril's pets. He'd already spared my life twice. On each occasion, he promised not to hurt me, and as a man of honour, he has been true to his word ever since. If he hadn't crossed my path one night on my way home from work and opened my eyes to the beauty of the night, I might have never fallen in love with his last living descendant in the first place."

The colour rising in her comely face, she cut herself off and bit down on her lower lip, looking like a little girl caught with her finger in the jam jar. Registering the almost palpable aura of embarrassment radiating from her like a heat wave, the truth finally began to dawn on Damien, and his heart skipped a beat. Holy crap, what a complete and utter fool he had been! In his naivety, he had assumed that the only tie binding Tarrant and his _ward_ together was the relationship between predator and prey, had fretted about her coming to harm at his merciless hands, but if he wasn't thoroughly mistaken, she had fallen for the Hunter's considerable charms, attracted by his angel face and aristocratic demeanour like the barmaid in Briand, just to mention one occasion on which a woman had batted her eyelashes at him in open invitation. The warmth in her voice when she uttered his name and the light shining in her eyes left no doubt about it.

It just remained to be seen whether the sentiment was mutual. A few months ago he would have dismissed the notion as utterly absurd, but after Niles had taken him into his confidence concerning his affection towards Alannah, nothing could surprise him anymore. At any rate, his former ally had always been a connoisseur of female beauty in his own wicked way, and Narilka Lessing without fail met each and every one of his criteria. That she was expecting another man's child - if he or she truly _was_ Andrys' offspring; the alternative was too terrible to contemplate - might be no more than a minor shortcoming. After all, the baby would be a Tarrant in any case, destined to carry on the bloodline.

Blind, raging jealousy burned his throat like the acid fumes of Mount Shaitan, destroying any illusions about the nature of his own feelings for the Hunter he might have harboured still. "You're in love with him, aren't you?" he rasped, barely recognizing his own voice. "Don't you bother denying it. It's written all over your face. Does he... are you...?

"Lovers?" The young woman smiled ruefully. "It isn't what you think. Gerald's been good to me, even offered to see me through when my time comes. Not many men volunteer for acting the midwife, and I'm deeply grateful for it. We're friends, Damien. On clear nights, he takes me up to his observatory, teaches me the name of the stellar constellations and shares the Old Knowledge with me. I feel at ease with him, wouldn't want to miss those hours for anything in the world. Yes, I deeply care about him. But his heart belongs to someone else."

"You aren't talking about his wife Almea, are you?" the warrior knight spluttered, not quite trusting his hearing sense.

Narilka's smile widened, and the mischievous sparkle in her eyes that had died down during their conversation flared up again. "As a matter of fact, I've something more recent in mind. But it's no use pestering me with questions, my dear Reverend. That's not for me to tell. And now you'd better take your leave and keep your rendezvous with Gerald. I'll see you at dinner."


	4. Gerald

**Gerald**

A/N: I wish you a happy fourth Advent, folks! It was hard enough to finish this chapter in time and I haven't even started writing the epilogue yet, so please don't be disappointed if don't make it till X-mas. As you all very well know, it's a busy time of the year, and working in retails doesn't make things any easier. Sometimes I believe that the madness our our customers increases in direct proportion to the progression of the year, lol. Anyway, I don't really think I'll be able to update on the 24th as it was intended, but maybe I can post something on Christmas Day or the 26th (also a public holiday here in Germany). Hugs!

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

"His Excellency, the Neocount of Merentha."

Still racking his brains concerning the identity of Tarrant's love interest, if it could be called thus at all with regard to the adept's demonic nature, and what the hell Narilka Lessing had found so funny about it in spite of her own infatuation with the man, Vryce entered the audience chamber on somewhat wobbly legs. As if time had stood still and their planet hadn't undergone drastic changes due to the taming of the fae, the Hunter was waiting for him right in the centre of the vaulted hall, the flame patterned collar of their Order resting on his strong shoulders and a golden circlet adorning his brow.

His view hit the warrior knight like a blow. In his full Revivalist regalia Gerald was truly a sight to behold, every inch the aristocrat and courtier he had once been in an age long gone from living memory. Nothing was left of the dusty traveller who had ridden and walked hundreds of miles at his side, sometimes possessing no more than the clothes on his back and the iron will to persevere, no matter what. The only memory of their toils and troubles was the puckered scar the Unnamed had graced him with. It would have disfigured any other man, but here it only served to highlight the otherwise ethereal flawlessness of his skin and the perfect proportions of his face.

Joy welled up inside Damien, a tingling warmth that spread from his chest region throughout his entire body, and the strange sensation that he was suddenly whole again after leading a miserable half-life for nigh to six months. Momentarily struck speechless by the sheer force of his feelings, he couldn't force a greeting past the growing lump in his throat, just stood there as if rooted to the spot and gazed his fill, blinking back the tears he couldn't allow himself to cry. Not now, in the presence of a creature who wouldn't shy away from using every weakness against him.

"Vryce. At the beginning of our acquaintance I wouldn't have considered it possible that I'd ever say this, but it's good to see you again."

"I wish I could return the compliment," the former priest groused, masking emotion with anger. "But as matters stand, I'd be much happier about our reunion if you hadn't summoned me here under threat of violence. Just in case you've conveniently forgotten, I'm not a dog, to be dismissed and called back at your every whim."

The Lord of the Forest chuckled. "You'd make a poor lap dog indeed. There isn't a streak of obedience in you, no... submissiveness. I appreciate that. Your unbroken fighting spirit is bound to add some spice to what I've in mind for you."

Alarm bells started to ring in Damien's brain, and his insides twisted into a tight knot of apprehension. The ramblings of the unfortunate girl whose violated soul had taken refugee in madness while running for her life in Tarrant's sinister realm had left no doubt that this wasn't a mere courtesy call, and the hungry glitter in Tarrant's eyes when alluding to his plans for him wasn't exactly helpful to calm his rattled nerves. It didn't bode well, didn't bode well at all, but he refused to let himself be intimidated by it. "It's nice to hear that you're well-pleased with me," he growled, "but you'd better not fool yourself into believing that I'll play the court jester for you."

"Rest assured, Vryce. I found a much better use for you than cracking jokes. You're sense of humour lacks a certain sophistication, anyway. As for my ultimatum, I deemed it wise to give you a little incentive, to allay the clamours of your priestly conscience, so to say. I've never doubted that you'd jump at the idea of saving a bunch of your precious innocents from my clutches."

"Yeah, you read me well. As always. But why the hell didn't you just send me a letter? I would have come to you in any case. You know this, don't you? At least, you needn't have abused that poor girl to make your point. She lost it completely, had to be confined to a mental asylum for her own safety, just in case her fate is of any interest to you. Besides, you very nearly scared the shit out of His Holiness with your performance."

The adept shrugged. "Alastair Temchevar's sensibilities are none of my concern. If everything goes according to plan, and trust me I'm going to make sure it does, he won't be Patriarch much longer. The woman, on the other hand, was an oversight. A regrettable mistake of mine I don't intend to repeat."

"Kindly don't take me for a fool, Gerald! Chasing after your favourite prey for centuries now, staging their deaths down to the very last detail, you aren't exactly a rookie. You sick son of a bitch hunt them for three terrible nights as if they were wild animals, all the while gluttoning yourself on their pain and terror, and then, in the last act of the drama, you take them down, drinking in their hope as it dies. As you told me aboard the Golden Glory, relishing in my abhorrence, my pangs of conscience, you allow some of them to escape on purpose, abstaining from a nice snack so that the others can suffer all the more for your pleasure. But whether they live or die, there isn't a second you aren't the master of the game, so don't expect me to buy that picking her for your menu was a mere error of judgement."

"Of course you're entitled to believe what you want to" the Hunter whispered, "but before you jump to conclusions, you'd better keep in mind that my diet had been somewhat wanting for a long time when our paths parted. A few quick kills and some measly canteens of blood simply couldn't make up for months and months of near starvation. She was my first real meal since I tried to wash away the taint of your human influence with rivers of blood, and I lost control."

"It must have bugged you to no end."

"That goes without saying. From the time when I forsook draining my victims to the last drop in exchange for more subtle delights such a lapse had occurred only once before, and you know what that single moment of weakness cost me. Anyway, overwhelmed by my hunger, I failed to notice that the woman was suffering from a latent psychosis. When I brought her worst fears alive to her, she snapped, and under the given circumstances I had only two options: putting her out of her misery or trying to bring some order to her mind by sharing my thoughts with her. For reasons to be revealed later, I chose the latter. My 'performance', as you please to call it, was no more than a minor side benefit."

"I'm glad you spared her life and that driving her crazy was an accident, but there are still a lot of things I don't understand. Don't get me wrong, but for almost ten centuries you killed without a shred of remorse, promised to execute your prisoners if I didn't play along, after cutting them into bits and pieces, no less. Vulking hell, you even threatened to annihilate the entire city of Jaggonath in case the Patriarch turned me in against my will. And yet you supported you involuntary guests for weeks on end, sent them home not only alive but kitted out like kings and queens, with one of your treasured true horses each and gold in their saddlebags. You even offer compensation for past wrongdoings, something unheard of. It's no secret that you aren't given to doing something on a whim, and so I might be forgiven for wondering about the reasons for your sudden turnaround."

"As you very well know, I don't make a habit of explaining myself. But considering that you'll keep pestering me with questions till doomsday unless I satisfy your curiosity, I'm willing to indulge you. When the Mother of the Iezu resurrected me on Mount Shaitan, she took something away from me, in order to create a new _child_. For reasons unbeknownst to me, she chose my sadism. My pleasure in the suffering of my prey. You of all people should appreciate this."

"Good riddance, I dare say. But this doesn't account for certain _inconsistencies_ in your behaviour, does it?"

"There you are very much mistaken, Vryce. As I've told you before, my sadistic delight in the suffering of others was an acquired taste. It took me some time to realize that my appetites had changed, to define the parameters of my existence anew and unlearn what I had practised for such a long time. But don't start celebrating just yet. However much I might wish otherwise, I'm still undead, require the vital power of man to stay alive, or what counts for 'alive' in my state."

"I understand, Gerald. In the end, you'll find a way. You always do. Until then, I'm here to... help you out should the need arise. There's just one thing I'd like to know: How does the fate of the last of the Tarrant clan save you conform with your new course? His corpse was a ghastly sight, if rumours are to be believed."

Something had softened in those pale eyes, but now they acquired a steely glint. "Andrys had his chance. I offered him free passage from my domain, but he refused to lay down his arms, called me a monster that had to be wiped off the face of the planet, at whatever cost. Just like the woman whose fate you bemoan, his mind was already seriously imbalanced long before he led an army into the Forest. Impersonating me and thus absorbing something of my malevolent essence in the process only was the last straw. Setting him free in his condition wasn't an option. As deranged as he was by then, he would have represented a danger to every human crossing his path. I couldn't have this, not with so much being at stake."

"What a piece of luck that the continuation of your bloodline was already secured. One way or the other," Damien retorted drily. "I suppose it's safe to assume that Andrys truly is the father of Mes Lessing's child."

"Oh yes, he is. I'm well aware of the ancient legends from Earth, wild tales about creatures born to a mortal woman but sired by a vampire. _Dhampir_ the superstitious multitudes on our mother planet used to call them, day walkers with considerable powers they more often than not employ to hunt down their fathers' hated kind. But although you'll learn soon that more things have changed than my attitude towards unnecessary cruelty, such a feat is still beyond me, I'm afraid. With regard to my plans, it doesn't really matter, anyway."

"I won't pretend that I'm not somewhat relieved to hear this, but I still can't quite fathom why you didn't content yourself with disarming the lad if your 'acquired taste' lost its appeal to you all of a sudden. Why not sending him back to Jaggonath with all the other prisoners?"

"Because he obstinately insisted on putting a bolt through my black heart in an utterly futile last ditch attempt to 'fulfil his holy mission', as he put it. Nonetheless, I would have spared his wretched life regardless of his audacity if nature hadn't decided otherwise. Oblivious to the world, you missed that there was a series of minor quakes, right after I had changed back into my human shape. As the currents were still much too hot to tap into and I wasn't altogether keen on dying once again, I had to fall back on a more mundane weapon in form of the pistol tucked into my belt. But just when I pulled the trigger, the earth shook again, and instead of causing a mere flesh wound as intended I hit his femoral artery. A Healing being out of the question for obvious reasons, this was the end of Andrys, however regrettable that might be from your point of view."

"So you can still Work," the warrior knight said quietly.

"Just so. Remember when I blasted a way out of the caves of the Lost Ones for you, fulfilling my debt of honour to the lady? It wasn't an experience I'd care to relive, but I survived the exposure to the sunlight, if only just. Our enemies weren't so lucky, although luck didn't really have a part in it. As I've pointed out before, they died because they knew of no other option. Then and now, it's all a matter of skill and determination, Vryce. As dying twice is more than enough, as far as I'm concerned, I had to find a way around the restrictions, hadn't I?"

As if Damien could ever forget that particular day. At that time, running for his life with the hordes of hell unleashed hard on their heels, he had put down his fear for the Hunter as natural loyalty towards a brother-in-arms, but now he knew better. Even back then, something had been blooming inside him, the first faint flutters of an emotion that had carried him to hell and his supposed meeting with eternity on Mount Shaitan a few years later, willing to die at Gerald's side if he couldn't save him. Only that, by the grace of God who in His wisdom had granted his fallen Prophet an unbelievable second chance, everything had turned out differently.

"It really shouldn't surprise me," he muttered when he could finally trust his voice again. "Not after witnessing you pulling a last ace from your vulking silk sleeve at the eleventh hour on more occasions than I actually care to count. No matter whether we talk about shape-shifting, something I would have dismissed as outright impossible before meeting you, or cheating death again and again, bowing down to the rules like Joe Public has never been your style."

"I suppose not," the Hunter breathed, the strange gleam in his eyes intensifying until it almost hurt to look at them. "I might be many things, but the ordinary man in the street isn't among them. Except in one regard, maybe, as you'll soon see for yourself. It's the 24th of December, Vryce, the Holy Night when Christ was born for a large part of the believers in the One God on our mother planet, and considering that I've been looking forward to my gift for more than a week now, I'd like to unwrap it at long last. But enough talk. Let's see if can surprise you a bit more tonight."

The Hunter glided closer with the consummate grace of one of the uncats he had bred from the local rodent population in his mortal days, his cloak, richly embroidered with gold threads, sweeping the ground at his feet with a low swish that sent a strange shudder of longing through Damien. Without him ever noticing, the large, vaulted windows had been unshuttered as if by an invisible hand, and Domina's rays flooded the audience chamber, basking everything in an unearthly silvery glow. It lent Tarrant's pale skin an almost translucent sheen and transformed his already striking features into something straight out of the old Earth tales about the Fair People and their hidden lair where no one ever grew old and sickness and death were but distant shadows from the world of the living. Standing regally in the moonlight, the adept could have easily been one of those fairy princes, forever young and beautiful and utterly untouched by the troubles of the mortal world.

Gerald's mien gave nothing away but a hint of sardonic amusement and the long, slender fingers coming to rest on his shoulders were perfectly steady, but hunger burned in those molten pools of silver never leaving his face like a flame. His undead flesh was still cold, radiated cold no less forbidding than the icy breath of the crevasses high up in the Divider Mountains, but very much to the warrior knight's astonishment, he lacked the almost palpable aura of malevolence which used to shroud him like a veil woven of pure evil. It was a miracle he hadn't expected, had only dared to daydream about in the scarce hours of rest towards the end of their shared adventures, but overwhelmed by Tarrant's personal magnetism, he would have felt no fear, anyway.

At the very next moment, his former ally bent down to him ever so slowly, a faint smile on his lips. When their mouths met for the first time, a shock wave of desire raced through Damien's body. _Now that's truly quite a surprise. No wonder that the pagan girl had a good laugh at my expense_ , a small voice piped up at the back of his mind. But then the Prince of Jahanna parted his lips with his tongue and started to grind his hips against him in a slow, hypnotic rhythm, and he stopped thinking altogether.

Quite a while later, the moons had wandered on and an eerie twilight that had no discernible source lay over the audience chamber, Damien heaved a contented sigh. He felt sore in places he couldn't mention and the scratches and bite marks on his chest and shoulders burned like hell, but as he had paid back in kind, the taste of the Hunter's cold, bitter-sweet blood still heavy on his tongue, he wasn't in a position to complain. Not that he would have wanted to. "I'd hate to kill the mood, if you know what I mean, but I can't get what you said about Temchevar out of my mind," he murmured at long last. "You aren't about doing something, well, very stupid, aren't you?"

The adept raised a delicately arched eyebrow. "Like paying him a visit one night? I might, but I don't intend to leave a corpse behind. The world surely wouldn't be poorer without him, but terminating his worthless life isn't on my agenda for the near future. Trust me that I've other ways and means at my disposal to rid the Church I created of a petty-minded, incompetent bureaucrat lacking any religious vision."

"Without question. But why bother, Gerald? A thousand years ago, the authorities came damn close to condemning you outright for the _crime_ of your adeptitude, and it's not so long since the previous Patriarch sicced a full-blown crusade onto you. I know that you've always considered yourself a servant of your most treasured creation, but why the hell can't you let go, allow her to find her own path? Is it your goddamn pride? Vanity?"

"It's nothing of the sort. After centuries of representing the local bogeyman, I deemed it fit to define my role anew. I hope you don't mind."

"Not at all, but I can't help but wondering about the nature of your 'new role'.

"Why, I thought it would be obvious. While those narrow-minded imbeciles congratulate each other on the taming of the fae, our planet rapidly heads towards a second dark age. I lived through one, and could do without repeating the experience. You cannot possibly imagine the living conditions, the atmosphere of fear that fuelled all kinds of superstitious nonsense. Since the fae became unWorkable for everybody else unless one is willing to pay the ultimate price, hundreds of invalids in Jaggonath alone have died of sicknesses you could have cured in a trice. Conventional medicine is still in its infancy on Erna, and will be for long years to come, but much worse is that the quake wards are bound to fail. Soon. And what then, Vryce? Even I can't be everywhere at the same time. But something has to be done about it, and I see no one within the scientific community who could succeed at solving the problem before it's too late."

"No one but you."

"Perhaps. I've something in mind, but as the idea is still somewhat ill-conceived, needs to be revised before I can move on to the experimental stage, it would be senseless to brief you on it now. There's something else I have to tell you, though. A confession to make so that you can fully grasp my motivations. After everything that has come to pass between us, I think you have that right."

"What is it, Gerald? I'm all ears."

Tarrant raised his head from its convenient resting place on his shoulder and looked him square in the face, and the warrior knight was stunned to see that his eyes were brimming with emotion. "It wasn't 'just' immortality the Undying Prince promised me," he whispered. "He suggested that the Prophet of the Law could live again after a decade of careful propaganda, be deified within two. To reclaim the most important part of my mortal life, the very core of my identity, was a hell of a temptation, an even more attractive bait than escaping the clutches of hell for all eternity. When you reminded me one night that I used to strive to better man's lot on Erna, it... hurt to think of the man I was once, and so I fobbed you off with a cynical retort, ascribed everything to my youth and naivety at that time. Nothing could have been further from the truth. However, then as now the people are in dire need of a protector. Considering that I seem to be the only one who can still Work, I'm afraid that I'll have to step into the breach."

"I say amen to that," Vryce choked out, not in the least ashamed of the tears running down his cheeks. Offering a silent prayer of thanks to their God Whose nature seemingly was indeed Mercy and His Word forgiveness just like the Prophet had taught a millennium ago, he pulled his former brother-in-arms into a tight embrace without giving a shit for his goose pimples and burning love marks.

A few minutes ago, getting a snatch of sleep had sounded like a great idea, but very much to his surprise, he found that the feel of the lean frame pressed against his bulk rekindled the flame of his desire he had thought extinguished for the remainder of the night. Drinking in Gerald's unique scent so eeriely reminiscent of a cold, clear winter night did one more thing to set his nerve endings on fire, and his penis came to life again as if the clocks had been turned back all at once and he were eighteen and not thirty-five.

 _You never fail to amaze me_ , an amused voice whispered in his mind. _For a man pushing his forties, your stamina leaves nothing to be desired. But don't let me stop you. I'm not altogether adverse to an encore._

"That's good to hear. Or whatever. But it's not an exact repetition of our previous activities that I'm craving after. I want you, Gerald. Want to be inside you, fuck us both into oblivion. Is that all right with you?"

Instead of gracing him with a verbal reply, the Hunter just pulled him on top of him _._ Their first love making hadn't really deserved the name. Tarrant taking him had rather felt like the man staking his claim, marking him as his own. Not that this approach hadn't yielded very pleasant results in the end, but this time, deciding that being hit by the sexual equivalent of an avalanche was quite enough for one day, Damien wanted to take it easy. At least for a while.

The adept's body opened up for him without a whiff of resistance, tight and slippery and utterly irresistible. When he slowly began to move his hips back and forth, carefully watching out for a sign of pain on those delicate features, the friction was so intense that he could barely resist the urge to speed up and to hell with his resolutions. But he managed to hold his horses, kept up the tantalizingly slow rhythm in spite of the perfectly manicured finger nails digging into his buttocks in a desperate attempt to urge him on.

"Vryce?"

The throaty purr of arousal unlike anything the warrior knight had heard Tarrant utter ever before went straight to his cock. "Yes?"

"Your concern is very much appreciated, but I'm not made out of sugar. Truth be told, I like it when you're a bit rough. It turns me on, as foolish as it might sound."

Rapidly approaching the point of no return, he needn't be told twice. At long last he allowed himself to follow his instincts, to thrust as hard and fast as he could until his lover tensed up beneath him. Gerald had to be be close now, very close. The low, half-stifled sounds of pleasure escaping his throat and the frantic, increasingly erratic motions of his pelvis left no doubt about it.

As if to prove him right, the Hunter squeezed his his eyes shut in ecstasy and opened his mouth for a silent scream, his entire body shuddering and jerking in the throes of passion, and the rhythmic pulse of his orgasm all around him was all it took to send Damien over the edge, as well.

"I don't doubt that you'll accomplish everything you want in the end," he mumbled drowsily when his breath had finally evened out, "but it might take a generation or two to change public opinion, make them forget you 'local bogeyman' image. It annoys the hell out of me that, as a mere mortal, I won't be around to witness your triumph."

"Are you sure?" Registering his startled expression, the Lord of the Forest chuckled softly. "You drank my blood, Vryce. Twice. I've never tried to pass on the gift so far, so I don't have any reference values, but if the old tales from Earth are anything to go by, you could very well be in for another surprise when your time comes."

"Please tell me that this is one of your _sophisticated_ jokes!"

"Not in the least. But don't you worry. Unlike me, you won't be all on your own during the blood madness following your transformation. I promise to take care of you, prevent the worst excesses of the unquenchable thirst that would turn you into a mindless monster otherwise."

"How very reassuring!" the warrior knight spluttered, suddenly wide awake. "Honestly, Gerald, I can't help but wondering whether I somehow managed to fuck your brilliant brains out. Holy crap, I don't want to become a vampire! Isn't one of us going on the prowl at night enough? And how the heck do you expect me to meet my food requirements? I won't attack innocents, suck them dry like a vulking leech with fangs!"

"Don't cross your bridges before you come to them, Vryce. Getting all worked up about possible events in the future will only serve to raise your blood pressure. Should you really need blood one day, you'll pay for it in gold. So will I, by the way. My generous offer should get me a steady stream of volunteers. Anyway, my hunger seems to abate lately. Feeding once a month, in small, measured doses, is more than adequate to keep me going."

"You never leave anything to chance, do you?"

"Not if I can help it. And now let me show your quarters. It's already past one o'clock, and you had a taxing evening."

The bedroom alone with its pompous canopy bed, opulent mirrors and heavily carved novebony furniture each and every antique dealer in Jaggonath would commit homicide in order to get his greedy hands on them could have effortlessly housed a numerous peasant family, including a few nugoats and chicken, but by now Damien was so tired that he couldn't really appreciate his surroundings. Still naked as the day he had been born, he flopped down onto the mattress, only marginally aware that the adept reclined at his side. But just when he was about dozing off, a thought crossed his mind, and he opened his eyes again. "Just one more thing. About Niles..."

"And Alannah?" Tarrant smirked sardonically. "It hasn't escaped my notice that they were billing and cooing like two turtle doves during her stay at the keep. I won't stand in their way, and as for her parents, you'll find some convincing arguments. The advocacy of a Knight of the Flame should make a favourable impression on them, all the more so when it's supported by a hefty bridal price. And now sleep well. We can resume our conversation - and everything else - later."

Whether Gerald was tampering with his mind again or exhaustion was taking its toll at long last the warrior knight very likely would never know, but he simply couldn't keep his eyes open any longer. More at peace with himself than he had been in ages, he went off like a light in his lover's arms, a faint smile still on his lips.


End file.
